Here appear occasional jottings of my random musings. Profound or jejune, they reveal the contours of my mental universe, with world history, intellectual history, civilizations, philosophy, religion, society, knowledge, and books as some major themes.
Since May 2011, this blog has been exclusively focused on Singapore. All my other reflections are now posted in "Notes from Noosphere" (see link under "Miscellany" on the right margin).

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Saturday, November 12, 2011

Teo Soh Lung: For Minister Teo Chee Hean (4)

Referring to the arrest of the alleged Marxists on 21 May 1987, Minister Teo
Chee Hean said in parliament:

“When the Government did move against this group in the mid-1980s, it made
clear that it was not acting against genuine social activists or members of the
clergy, but only those who were covertly pursuing their subversive Marxist
political agenda by hiding within the church organisations. Appreciating the
sensitivities involved, the Government made every effort to explain to the
Church leadership that this was not targeted at the Church. The Church leaders
and the Vatican itself acknowledged this publicly… “ (para 18).

It was by chance that I read the notes recorded by the ISD of the meeting
between the late Archbishop Gregory Yong, Fr Giovanni D’Aniello of the Holy See,
several representatives of the Catholic Church and the then prime minister, Mr
Lee Kuan Yew with the director of ISD and other officials at the Istana two
weeks after 16 alleged Marxists were arrested. The notes reminded me of the
hours I stood before the former prime minister and his colleagues at the
parliamentary select committee hearing on the Legal Profession Amendment Bill in
1986 and the interrogation I was subjected to by ISD officers at Whitley Road
Centre.

As Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church, one would have expected His
Holiness to be treated with courtesy, respect and patience. If the notes are
accurate, the Archbishop and his colleagues were treated like political
prisoners. They were “imprisoned” for nearly three hours at the Istana. The hot
and cold tactics used by ISD interrogators were used on those eminent Church
leaders. The Church was praised and then threatened. When threats failed, words
softened. Ideas that the Church was being used by communists were subtly
suggested. The “culprits” who the government alleged necessitated the arrests in
1987 shifted from the 16 detainees to four Catholic priests. Just study this
passage and you will understand what I mean:

“PM said that he was not interested in VINCENT CHENG
and his group, but he had to deal with them in a way that would make it less
likely for others to follow in their wake. He was however more concerned about
the involvement of several priests and that the Archbishop had been told about
them by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in JUL 86. PM said that he took the
matter so seriously that when the Pope visited Singapore, he informed the Pope
that the Church was a source of strength for Singapore but that there were now
problems coming from the Church and that the Archbishop knew about it. PM said
that the Archbishop was told about Fr EDGAR D’SOUZA, Fr PATRICK GOH, Fr JOSEPH
HO and Fr AROTCARENA. PM then read out the Church’s press statement issued on 28
MAY 87 in which the Church stated that:

“The Catholic Church ….. must continue its mission
of spreading its teachings on matters pertaining to justice as they apply to
social, economic and political issues …. To the best of our knowledge, the
full-time workers have been fully committed to the work of the Catholic
organisation in which they served. The six voluntary workers have generously
contributed their time and talents to specific work in the Catholic organisation
with which they were associated. We hope and pray that justice will be done and
be seen to be done.””

I was surprised that instead of arresting the four priests who were “creating
problems” for the prime minister in 1986, 16 people were arrested in their
stead! Was the government afraid of the Catholic Church? Did the prime minister
think then that slaughtering 16 chickens would make the Church compliant? I
don’t know. The notes were full of contradictions. It was familiar style. Even
the issue of who initiated the meeting at the Istana had to be altered. The
person in charge could say anything and no one, including His Grace, was brave
enough to correct any error or contradiction.

And so statements were made and then contradicted. Like a theatre
performance, actors appeared suddenly and key players bowed out only to return
after a change of costume. The intervals were meant to temporarily relieve
anxiety from the “prisoners”, giving them short respite. At the same time, (I
suspect) ,it enabled the interrogators to plan their next move and change their
tact. While political prisoners were interrogated in freezing cold rooms with
spotlights shining into their eyes, the “interrogation” of Church leaders were
done in the comfort of the Istana. The techniques used however, were the same.
Documents were produced to His Holiness who must read them quickly.

“… PM pointed out that the Archbishop had read ISD’s documents in 3 meetings
with MHA officials…”

Wow, three meetings to read, digest and be convinced about a conspiracy to
overthrow the government!

From the notes, I gathered that agreements had to be reached quickly and
statements issued for public consumption. Time was of the essence, at least on
the part of the prime minister. It was either His Grace issued a statement there
and then or the Church would be seen as being on a collision course with the
government. The strange and bewildering Kafkaesque atmosphere was sufficient to
frighten the Archbishop and the representative from the Holy See.

During the meeting, the Archbishop had read from a prepared statement
defending the 16 arrested. I reproduce part of the notes:

“… The Archbishop said that the Church had given the Government the benefit
of the doubt because they believed that it was a responsible Government. He
ended that just as the Government could not condone corruption by one of its
Ministers recently, the Church also could not condone any violation of human
rights. He hoped the Government could show that the detainees were guilty of
what they had been accused of and that when this had been done, the Church would
have no reason to fight for them or fault the Government. He would then be most
grateful to the Government for having prevented people from using the Church for
subversive purposes. He added that the Church recognised the right of the
Government to safeguard the security of the nation but at the same time the
Government had an obligation to prove that those detained were a threat to
security…”

That belief in the innocence of the 16 until proven guilty vanished in the
three-hour meeting. His Grace issued a statement which read as follows:

“We are satisfied that the Government of Singapore has nothing against the
Catholic Church when it detained 10 of our Church workers amongst the 16 who
were arrested for possible involvement in the clandestine Communist
network.”

The Church had abandoned her flock in three hours and saved herself from the
wrath of the government. It was a wise decision – to save the majority, save the
four priests and disown the ten detainees. The four priests were spared in
that they were not detained though they were relieved of their duties a few days
later by the Archbishop, because it was the 10 who had made use of the Church.
I wonder who were the unlucky ten. To incur the wrath of the government is an
inconsequential matter. To incur the wrath of God as represented by the
Archbishop (if one believes in God) by making use of the Church is another
matter.

Minister Teo Chee Hean may be right to
say that the arrests in 1987 was not targeted at the Church because the Church
said so. But can we believe a statement that was drafted by the Archbishop
within three hours? Maybe not. After all, the Archbishop was a sort of
“prisoner” in the Istana. But if the statement was issued in haste or
involuntarily, the Archbishop should have taken the earliest opportunity to
correct the statement. She had that opportunity in 1989 when the Far Eastern
Economic Review was sued for defamation for reporting among other matters, that
the Archbishop was “tricked” into issuing the statement (at the Istana meeting).
I remember the Church was silent then, thus impliedly disagreeing with the
magazine’s report. In recent years, the Church repeated the government’s claims
against the detainees in a publication Going forth … The Catholic Church in
Singapore 1819-2004 [1]. With this publication, we should no longer doubt
that the Archbishop voluntarily issued the Istana statement (even though the
Archbishop never saw the publication as he passed away in 2000). Under the
heading “Detention of some Catholics,” the authors dismissed
the arrest of 22 people as an “unfortunate event” and the law suit against
the Far Eastern Economic Review as an “unpleasant episode”.

The authors had their facts wrong from the beginning. The majority of the 22
arrested had absolutely nothing to do with the Catholic Church. They could have
spared themselves from having to explain the “unfortunate event” if they had
interviewed the living protagonists of the alleged conspiracy. I am sure the
three priests and Vincent Cheng who are alive today would be happy to tell their
side of the story. The authors could have analysed the 1987 event more carefully
and inform the readers that the government’s allegations that those 22 arrested
were not accurate because the majority had nothing to do with the Church.
Disappointingly, the authors chose to regurgitate published materials without
investigating the truth. They did not analyse or express their own views on
those published materials thus misleading readers to believe that the detainees
made use of the Church. They wrote:

“Articles appeared in The Catholic News on the issue of foreign
workers and maids written by a priest. In 1986, Archbishop Gregory Yong was
informed that this constituted involvement of the Church in politics.
Nevertheless, the articles continued to appear. The authorities established that
a communist net was growing and that a number of Catholic organisations, the
Students’ Christian Movement, the Young Christian Workers’ Movement and the
Catholic Students’ Societies of the National University and the Singapore
Polytechnic had been drawn in. The Straits Times reported that a
Marxist conspiracy to subvert the political and social system of Singapore had
emerged which went beyond pure social concerns…”[2]

The authors even wrote briefly about similar arrests of Catholic priests and
workers in Operation Lalang which took place in October 1987 without informing
readers that the Catholic Church in Malaysia courageously stood up for their
workers and those arrested in Singapore. I remember receiving many notes and
cards from individuals and Catholic organisations in Malaysia throughout my
detention. Again relying on secondary source, The China Post of 24
November 1988 was partially quoted by the authors:

“Meanwhile, a similar story was unfolding in Malaysia. In 1987, the Malaysian
government arrested one hundred and six people connected to Marxists and
Christian groups subscribing to liberation theology which threatened to “disrupt
Malaysia’s delicate racial and religious balance. … (They) Had infiltrated
several Christian societies, including the young Christian Movement and the
Catholic Students’ Society to win wider acceptance of Marxist ideology… The
government described liberation theology as an approach which stresses that
Catholicism contains teachings that human freedom can be achieved through a
class struggle, and force may be used when all other means have been
exhausted.””[3]

The authors appeared intent on putting the Singapore government in good light
by repeating the praises lavished by the former prime minister when they again
cited published materials, this time The Straits Times of 3 June 1987.
They wrote:

“Mr. Lee Kuan Yew met the press, accompanied by Archbishop Gregory Yong,
after the meeting of 1 June 1987. “Twice during the Istana Press conference, Mr
Lee showed that he held ordinary Catholics in high regard. He said that he had
found the Catholics to be amongst the most stout-hearted defenders of the
democratic society and against Marxism and totalitarianism as represented by the
communists … good relations between Catholic Church and the state will be
maintained … (lay Catholics) are very staunch supporters of the community in
education, health, social work and so on”.[4]

If the Archbishop’s Istana statement made in 1987 was extracted under
duress, surely an important publication on the illustrious history of the
Catholic Church in Singapore published 20 years after should make clear the
Church’s position. It was a golden opportunity for the Church to explain the
work of the arrested Church workers and the intention of the Second Vatican
Council which the authors proudly claimed “had emphasized a pastoral response to
a fast changing world that had affected various groups of people. It found
expression in what came to be known as Development Theology. It was directed at
championing the cause of people in all situations of life and the creation of a
more just society…” [5]

The Church chose not to dispute the voluntariness of the statement. Reading
the authors’ brief exposition of the Second Vatican Council, I suddenly realised
why the Catholic Church was so active in championing the rights of the workers’
in the 1980s. The four priests were putting the text of the Second Vatican
Council into action. They sought help from Catholics and non Catholics to manage
their organisations in Jurong (the Young Christian Workers’ Centre) and Geylang
(the Geylang Catholic Centre). I was one of the volunteers. Those volunteers
and underpaid Church staff worked very hard to defend the human rights of
foreign workers. But what happened when the Church was confronted by the state
about the work of those volunteers and workers? The Church buckled and left
them to defend themselves. She sang the tune of the government. I cannot
therefore agree with Archbishop Nicholas Chia that Going forth … The
Catholic Church in Singapore 1819-2004 is a “well-documented publication
of the history of the Church in Singapore.” [6] Until the Church investigate the
1987 arrests earnestly and preferably while witnesses to that “unfortunate
event” or “unpleasant episode” are alive, there will be no closure for those
volunteers and workers accused of making use of the Church and imprisoned
without trial by the state. Until the Church examine her past action or
inaction, the stain on the Catholic Church in Singapore for failing to stand up
for her volunteers and workers in their time of need will remain, at least as
far as I am concerned.